The part of eastern Washington south of the Okanogan Highland Province, save the extreme southeastern corner of the state, constitutes the Columbia Lava Province. This is an extensive, relatively level plateau that lies mainly below 2,000 feet elevation. The plateau consists of gently folded lava flows that reach a depth of 4,000 feet in some places (Russell, 1893) and slope inward from the east, north, and, in part, the west (Flint, 1938). These horizontal layers of basalt are extremely resistant to erosion by other than large rivers. Two great gashes cross the Plateau diagonally from the northeast to the southwest; these are Moses Coulee and the Grand Coulee. These old coulees are the former valleys of the Columbia River, and were formed at the time when the course of the river was successively blocked by the advance of Pleistocene ice. The Snake River crosses the southern edge of the Columbia Lava Province and separates the plateau proper from an area of similar land to the southward. [Illustration: FIG. 2. Columbia River one mile west of Kellers Ferry, Washington, elevation 1,060 feet, April 16, 1940. (Fish and Wildlife Service photo by Victor B. Scheffer, No. 933.)] The Blue Mountains Province is an area of relatively small extent in the extreme southeastern corner of the state of Washington. There, the province concerned constitutes, as it were, a northward extension of the Blue Mountains of Oregon. The mountains rise to only 5,000 feet elevation in the Washington part of the Blue Mountains Province. DISTRIBUTIONAL AREAS The physiographic provinces are areas of land form. The form of the land has a considerable effect on the temperature, humidity, drainage, weathering, soil, and other non-organic features that combine to produce the various life-zones and influence the distribution of mammals. One might therefore expect a close correlation of mammalian distributional areas with physiographic provinces. Although there is a correlation, it is not exact because the distribution of mammals is influenced also by certain other factors. Among these are historical factors and isolation by geographic barriers. [Illustration: FIG. 3. Mammalian distributional areas of Washington. A. Western Washington. B. Cascade Mountains. C. Northeastern Washington. D. Blue Mountains. E. Southeastern Washington. F. Yakima Valley. G. Columbian Plateau.] The Cascade Mountains Province of Culver includes the Yakima Valley Area. This province contains two completely different mammalian distributional areas. The higher mountains possess a boreal, alpine fauna; the Cascade Range itself is called the Cascade Area in this report. The Yakima Valley Area possesses a desert fauna derived from the desert of eastern Oregon.